Close to You (32 page)

But what if the kid was telling the truth? There'd be hell to pay if it got out that they hadn't followed up on this.

He had better send a car out.

 

Samuel cried out in pain as he lunged for Eliza's neck. His grip had the strength of a crazy person. Eliza struggled to break free but he was too strong.

What could she do?

She managed to knee him in the groin. Eliza felt his hands loosen and she was able to break away. But the force of her blow had not been great enough to bring him to his knees. She ran as fast as she had ever run in her life, hearing the leather-soled shoes pounding on the macadam behind her. Despite the bleeding wound in his side, he was gaining on her.

Then she heard Samuel groan as he slipped and fell to the pavement. The goose droppings gave her precious extra seconds.

Should she run to the Feeneys'?

That would leave Janie alone. If she could just get into
the house, she could call the police. But Samuel was so enraged, he could easily force himself inside.

Instinctively she went back to be near her child. Eliza locked the door behind her and ran to the phone. The emergency numbers were glued on the receiver. She dialed as fast as she could and after only one ring she heard, “HoHoKus Police.”

 

The squad car got the radio call and obediently headed toward Saddle Ridge Road.

“It could be a prank, but you better check it out anyway.”

The car was blocks away from Eliza's house when the second call came on the radio.

“Suspect armed and dangerous. Sending backup.”

 

Eliza waited, afraid to look out the window. Where were the police? Where
were
they?

If Samuel got in, she would face him herself.

With what? She cast about frantically.

She went to the fireplace and grabbed the iron-and-brass poker.

 

The wound ached painfully as Samuel lurched to the back of Eliza's house and pulled back the heavy pool cover. Eliza would come to her end in the water after all. Then, with all the strength of a madman, he picked up one of the large rocks that lined the garden and smashed it through the kitchen door's plate-glass window.

Eliza was waiting for him.

 

The police car sped into Eliza's driveway. The patrolman ran up and banged on the front door and waited for an answer that did not come.

He pulled his gun, not knowing what he was going to be facing.

He had to wait for backup.

 

Samuel stepped over the shattered glass into the kitchen and listened carefully.

Where was she?

He stealthily walked through the dining room, the living room and into the den, leaving a trail of blood behind.

She must have gone upstairs to guard her baby.

With determination he climbed the stairs. When he reached the landing, he turned to check the hallway. Eliza's waiting eyes met his.

With all her instinctive maternal strength, she brought the poker smashing down on top of his head, the blow sending him careening backwards down the stairs.

Eliza stood motionless as she heard footsteps and then watched the blue-uniformed men crouch down beside the crumpled, bleeding figure on the floor below.

Janie slept through the whole thing.

A biting wind whipped across the choppy gray water at Sandy Hook, blowing the hair and coats of the people assembled at the shoreline. At the front of the group, Florence and Monica Anderson stood in the wet sand and listened as the minister read from his Bible.

“ ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. . . .' ”

Along with the other mourners, Eliza Blake and Abigail Snow walked to the water's edge and tossed pink carnations into the Atlantic Ocean.

Eliza waited her turn to speak to Linda's mother. “I'm so sorry, Mrs. Anderson.” There was nothing else she could think to say.

Florence Anderson raised her arms and wrapped them around Eliza.

“Thank you, dear. At least I know what happened now. It's better this way.”

Eliza pulled back and looked into the woman's sad, yet still-sparkling blue eyes. She prayed this mother would be able, finally, to find peace.

“Will you be able to join us for lunch?” Florence asked.

“Thank you, but I'm afraid not. I have to get back to work for an election coverage rehearsal.”

Eliza offered Abigail a ride back to the Broadcast Center, expecting her to accept all too eagerly. But Abigail declined. She was going to lunch with her former coworkers from the Garden State Network who had come to the memorial service.

“Eliza, I just want you to know, I won't be bothering you anymore. I've found someone.”

“I'm glad for you, Abigail. I really am.”

Alone, Eliza walked across the sand to the waiting car. Her thoughts turned to Mack. He would be home in a few weeks for Thanksgiving. Maybe they
could
work things out.

Everyone made mistakes.

 

“As Linda Anderson's agent, Samuel Morton stood to make a tidy fee if he negotiated a network contract for his client. The police had questioned Morton along with all Linda's other friends and acquaintances, but they dismissed him as a suspect. He was an educated, polished, assured individual with no apparent motive. In fact, Morton only gained if Linda lived.”

When Eliza returned to the Broadcast Center from the memorial service, Joe Connelly reeled off the information he had gotten from the local police detective in charge of the Anderson case at the time of her disappearance.

“And he could just move away like that?” Eliza asked. It didn't make sense.

“Sure he could. He wasn't accused of any crime. The police knew he'd moved to Florida about a year after Linda disappeared. It didn't look like he was fleeing. He was joining his brother's law firm and going to live in a beautiful city in a wonderful climate. Who was going to argue with that?”

“Did they ever check up on him with the Sarasota police?”

Joe nodded. “Yeah, they did. Though they didn't have to. But all reports were that Morton was a model citizen, big on philanthropy and heavy into the social scene.”

God, you never knew. The urbane, sophisticated man sitting next to you at the black-tie fundraiser could turn out to be an obsessed madman.

“What about Samuel's brother? Did he know anything about all this?”

“The Sarasota PD doesn't think so. Leo Morton said he was worried about his brother's depression. He said Samuel wouldn't show up at work sometimes, explaining he just had to walk the beach. Leo was concerned about the behavior, but he never for a minute suspected that his brother was a murderer. Leo was there when the cops searched Samuel's townhouse. He seemed truly appalled when they found videotapes of Linda Anderson and you.”

“Does he know that Samuel used a picture of his daughter and passed her off as his own?”

Joe nodded. “He does now. I hear he's livid about it.”

“I would be, too, if someone used Janie's picture that way.” Eliza tried to think of the future. “What happens now?”

“If your aim had been a little better, or if you'd been a little stronger, you wouldn't have to ask that question. But when his wounds heal, he'll stand trial. You'll have to testify. In some sick way, he'll enjoy that—being close to you one more time.”

 

The police had recovered her engagement ring, the diamond earrings, the heirloom emerald bracelet and the treasured pin. The HoHoKus detective told her that keys to other robbed homes had been found in the service-station office. Augie Sinisi would be going to jail.

“You look positively serene tonight, honey,” Doris commented as she airbrushed Eliza's fair skin.

Indeed, when Doris went into the control room for a last check of Eliza's makeup under the blazing studio lights, she noted with satisfaction that the anchorwoman glowed from the monitor screen. The stress had vanished from the beautiful face.

Janie was watching out the front window as the car headlights lit up the driveway.

“Mommy's home!” she cried out to Mrs. Garcia.

Janie greeted her mother with a litany of what had happened that day. They were learning about the pilgrims at school. Daisy sat on command. Mrs. Garcia had taught her two new Spanish words.

Eliza listened intently, luxuriating in the ordinary, precious details of which life was made. She bent down and took her little girl in her arms and held her close. Eliza vowed that she would never take anything for granted again, yet, inevitably, she knew she would. That was human nature.

Read on for an excerpt from
Mary Jane Clark's new novel

DANCING IN THE DARK

Now available
from St. Martin's Paperbacks!

PROLOGUE

 

Thursday evening, August 18th

 

D
eprived of sight, her other senses were intensified. She stood in the darkness, seeing nothing, but hearing the persistent roar of the Atlantic Ocean in the distance and the soft flapping of wings right above her. Her nostrils flared at the smell of must and decay. The ground was damp and cold beneath her bare feet, her toes curling in the wet, sandy dirt. She felt something brush against her ankle and prayed it was only a mouse and not a rat.

Three days in this dank chamber were enough. If she had to stay any longer, she would surely lose her mind. Still, when they found her, as she fantasized they would, the police would want to know everything. To survive this, she'd have to be able to recount every detail of what had happened.

She would tell the police how he'd leave her alone for what seemed like hours at a time. She would tell them how he'd gagged her when he left so nobody would hear her screams and how he would only lower the gag to press his mouth against hers when he returned.

The police would want to know what he'd said to her, but she would have to tell them that she had stopped asking him questions after the second day of captivity because he'd never answered. He'd expressed what he wanted by touch.
She'd be sure to tell them how he'd caressed her and lifted her up, how he'd maneuvered his body against hers, how she had known she must follow his lead.

As she continued to mentally organize the information the police would surely need from her, she felt a familiar rumble from her stomach. She had eaten sparsely of the meager provisions, but that didn't really bother her. Hunger was a familiar friend. She knew the ability to survive with minimal sustenance was one of her most impressive strengths, though, of course, her parents didn't see it that way. Nor did her former friends or teachers or the health care professionals who had worked so hard to steer her away from the path she had chosen for herself. They didn't see what to her was only obvious. Not eating was the ultimate control.

As she listened to a pigeon cooing from the eaves above her, she thought more about her parents. They must be frantic with worry. She imagined her mother crying, and her father pacing and cracking his knuckles, over and over, his annoying habit whenever he was upset. Was everyone in town out looking for her? She prayed they were. She hoped that anyone who had ever wronged her, anyone who had ever snubbed her, anyone who had ever hurt her, was worried about her now.